Saturday, October 24, 2020

Playlist

 Preface

"Academe has two equal and opposite problems, both life-threatening, and together virtually terminal: academe cannot survive into the contemporary world and its contemporary predicaments without coming up with genuinely new ways of thinking; equally, academe (at least in its liberal-arts/humanities aspects) is structurally incapable of either engendering or supporting or even tolerating truly new ways of thinking."

- Benjamin Boretz "The Responsibility of the Arts in the Dialogue About Educational Reform" from "Being About Music Textworks 1960-2003 J. K. Randall Benjamin Boretz Volume 2: 1978-2003"

Texts

Streaming

October 23, 2020

Seattle Modern Orchestra - Julia Tai and Jérémy Jolley, Co-Artistic Directors

Clarinet Sonata - Edison Denisov - Deanna Briggs, clarinet

Air in G minor - Lou Harrison - Paul Taub, flute

The Moon and Sun Are Eternal Powers - Jarrad Powell - Paul Taub, flute

Simultaneously Solitary (Shendos No. 14) - Tom Baker - James Falzone, clarinet; Raymond Larsen, trumpet; Maria Ritzenthaler, viola; Abbey Blackwell, bass; Bonnie Whiting, percussion

In Memoriam Muhal Richard Abrams for Violin and Glockenspiel - Tyshawn Sorey - Eric Rynes, violin; Bonnie Whiting, percussion

Julia and Jérémy assembled a handful of Seattle's finest performers and presented an hour of flawless magic both in spite of and in recognition of these horrid times, secluded as we are from the simplest pleasures of playing music together. As always, the local composers, represented here by Tom Baker and Jarrad Powell, held their own just fine with their peers from elsewhere.

These are strange times indeed, when many of us, myself included, find ourselves suffering from emotional stresses of which we are often only dimly aware. Even in the past these can find sudden and unwitting outlet - music might move us to tears or leave us flabbergast and waste in a heap. One never really knows the whens or the hows nor the whats nor the whys. Last night I was moved - and I hesitate, here, to admit it, because I'll need to qualify it immediately - to unremitting fits of joyful and giddy hilarity. Was something about the concert funny? I suppose from a certain point of view I could point out aspects I could analyze that way - and some (by now ubiquitous) connection issues during the after gig chat certainly fed into it - Tom (and you know I love you dearly): you could get a side-gig going - think "Tom Headroom", just sayin' - but in the end my reaction was just that, mine, and its specifics had little to do with the specifics of what I was hearing or seeing. My best guess is that I was so happy at how well it was going and in how "all in" everybody was, that hilarity overcame me.

Be all that as it may, and on top of the spectacular performances all around, the show itself was put together with obvious love and care. SMO wears its institutional and professional aspirations proudly. When they do something they do it right, sharing it for us with joy and fervor. I loved the way the whole thing flowed, sound and video both - and I would like to extend my personal congratulations to the production team. Seeing and hearing five performers in five locations, hearing with each other in real time, arranged so beautifully on the screen, was deeply moving. Thank you all, you are part of what makes Seattle a blessed place.

Recorded

October 17, 2020

Creole Bells - Metropolitan Orchestra [from Allan Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]

bandstand band
gets that piccolo calliope sound
that Stravinsky picked up a few years later in Petrushka

Sonata, Op. 1 - Alban Berg - Alfred Brendel

some pushing and shoving going on between and among the various musics crowded into this counterpoint 

one of them went sulking off 

an opera scene
a brawl some if it
in graceful slo mo

October 18, 2020

Jeux - Claude Debussy - Orchestra of Radio Luxembourg, Louis De Froment

cells that repeat
spans that don't
attention isn't drawn
obviously
to a larger framework
but is held
within a few moments to either side 

the sense of now is narrow and mercurial
the repeating of a cell
is what defines
the cell
a mesmeric trick

The Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan - Charles Tomlinson Griffes - Boston Symphony Orchestra, Seiji Ozawa

twice or thrice exotic:
francophilic treatment
of an English opium dream
of the east
in the past 

the purpose of this music is
to portray
to be about something
to evoke images
and lead one through those images
as a docent might

Variations on a Noel - Marcel Dupre - David Di Fiore

organ
in its close ties to architecture
building and instrument
are one and same
and because those buildings are for the most part liturgical spaces
organ music  has been more closely related and tied to that music appropriate to Western Christian hymnody et al
this has limited the range of its repertoire 

if the medium is the message
then a large part of the message of organ music
has been tied to the uses of sacred space 

but darn it he plays well 

youwza! 

and no other instrument
no ensemble
has the same capability of dissociating
meter
figuration
and voice
into regions of the room

Five Sacred Songs for voice and small ensemble - Anton Webern - Halina Lukomska

syllable to note correspondence keeps it atomic
if it's not a note it isn't a part of music

Home Sweet Home - Frank Jenkins [from Allan Lowe's  Turn Me Loose White Man]

variations on a theme
in a pattern
marked by figuration

Just a Closer Walk With Thee - Stuart Hine - Prospect Choir

each beat
an accent
brings
out
the barbershop

Kind Hearted Woman Blues - Robert Johnson

casual consideration of the downbeat
held together by structural lyrics and timbral echoes between guitar and voice

Four Norwegian Moods - Igor Stravinsky - New York Philharmonic, Igor Stravinsky 

I could imagine this the soundtrack of a National Geographic newsreel
in which direction do these exotic pictures query?
east to west or west to east?
who commissioned this?

Violin Concerto in D - Erich Wolfgang Korngold - Stuttgart Radio Orchestra, Willy Mattes, Ulf Hoelscher

come see the view from here
isn't it lovely 

lifts itself to see
or steps up
then sinks back
into warm fine happy home 

plays between scrubby scrubby violin playing and singing singing violin playing
throw some sparkly dust around to make it swoony 

slow movement
I hear now how he echoes the sound of a violin within similar sounds in the orchestra ties colors together
halo 

scrubby finale ends 7 times over in quick succession

Night Train - Jimmy Forest [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

the sax pitches lift into brightness
!honk! in your ear
train's air horn I suppose
happy party sultry blues

Farther Up The Road - Bobby Bland [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

nearly a duplication of the ensemble in Night Train above if voice and sax could be counted as 

equivalent 

Four French Songs - [unknown composer(s)] - Betty Eisenbrey, Ronnie Martin

from a private tape
I must presume she was practicing these at home when I was little
so I've heard them before
but it has been some time since then

Everybody Loves a Winner - William Bell [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

arranged to perfection
back up singers are brilliant

Breakers Off Baranquilla - Lake Washington Singers

from a private tape
the layers of its (that prior tape's) former medial states as they push stop and go off air in sequence

"...such words as it were vain to close..." - J. K. Randall - Lana Anikina Suran [from Open Space 40]


the logical and lyrical extremes of Debussyan clarity

Pastorale: The Color of Water - Neal Kosály-Meyer - Neal Kosály-Meyer [recorded October 4, 2010]

we discuss slowed down prepping for the next major performance in Snohomish
we talk about Gradus
I was using "my 'drothers"

Ain't Got You - Bruce Springsteen [from Tunnel of Love]

wooing the other
channel love
the subdued orchestration
probably didn't even need
as much as he used

October 20, 2020

Banned Rehearsal 283 - John E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt, Marilyn Meyer, William Meyer

we are in a small room together
a busy infant is making busy infant sounds
while we strum bang pluck and blow
conversations cross intersect
and rebound in the room
from in and from out of the room
volitional? and not so much?
resplendently cruddy
when musicality is not a favored thing
neither input nor output
patience is required
musicality in some new form
may emerge someday
we finish with Stein
a reading

October 21, 2020

Explosion! - Shonen Knife [from Brand New Knife]

by the book maximum generic in your generic face corporate fabricated for genericness

F r AgMe Nt(s) - Marcus Oldham - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded March 11, 2007]

this was the last recording I made on the Yamaha 6' my folks bought for me in high school 

gesturally expressionist 
tightly coiled pitch work 
nothing is let go 
pulled back 
into 
close 
quarters 
clutched

Radio Nowhere - Bruce Springsteen [from Magic]

his vocal is buried deeper in the mix than is his usual custom
as best I can tell he's advertising the songishness of the song - not his best and only half finished at that

October 22, 2020

Sonata - Aaron Keyt - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded April 12, 2014]

removing tonal function and leaving only what?
common tone relations?
or not even that?
at least strong motivic gestural cross relations
the things that are going on together
may have difficult relations between themselves
but they are each
clearly
things going on
and it is together
that they are going on 

I dropped a lot of notes

Ranjana Phillauri - Diljit Diosanjh [from Bollygood Volume 2]

reverse exoticism
or succumbing -
(I want a portmanteau for succumbing and subsumption)
- to the powers that pay?
evidence that the sheer sound of pop is meaningless, empty.
the flavor of meaning only
#sincere

In Session at the Tintinabulary

October 19, 2020

Banned Telepath 64 Lake City Messages - Anna K, Neal Kosály-Meyer

Banned Telepath 64 Tintinabulary - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Neal Kosály-Meyer

Banned Telepath 64 Toad Hall - Aaron Keyt

Banned Rehearsal 1012 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer

Aaron played drum at Toad Hall, Anna and Neal phoned from Lake City while Karen and I were playing in the Tintinabulary. Anna and Neal had also left some long messages so we added those in also 

Postscripts

no sign of years ago grill had but as
teddy buying the glass but nothing you
could call a name and on a dark night when

more than one
monologue in the world
the ground wind sees

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